TRANSPORT POLICY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21773, 12 October 1932, Page 8

TRANSPORT POLICY

CO-ORDINATION OF FACILITIES SUPREME COUNCIL PROPOSED MR ANSELL’S SUGGESTION (Fuoii Our Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, October 11. An appeal for the establishment of a single transport council to have supreme control of the Dominion’s transport facilities, which are now variously represented by the Transport Department, the Railways Board, the Marine Department, the Highways Board, the Public Works Department, and local bodies, was made by Mr A, E. Ansell (Chalmers) during his address in the financial debate in the House to-day. -, . Mr Ansell quoted one section Ot the National Expenditure Commission’s report in which it was stated that since the fees collected under the Transport Licensing Act were sufficient to cover its expenditure, the Transport Department was not, under present conditions, a burden on the Consolidated Fund: but later on the commission expressed the opinion that the duties of the Transport Department could be well undertaken by the Public Works Department, and declared that there seemed to be no justification for the continued existence of a special department. Mr Ansell said he regarded these two statements as inexplicable. Although the commission showed that the Transport Department was not a drain on the Consolidated Fund, it suggested putting its activities under the wing of the Public Works Department, which it had criticised so severely. • , . Mr Yeitch: You mean under the toot of the department. Mr Ansell: The hon. member is probably right. . . , , The finding of the commission, he went on, was quite out of line with progressive ideas throughout the world. Recently they had had the report of the Salter Commission which was set up' in London to go into problems of transport. The tendency of the day was obvious all over the world, yet here was a commission which claimed that there was no justification for a special Transport Department. It was obvious that the commission’s duties were too widespread to allow it sufficient time to deal with this particular department, or else it would not have made such a recommendation. Mr Ansell discussed the growth in the Dominion’s national transport costs. According to a recent report, he said, the total cost of land transport was about £44,000,000, compared with a total revenue from national production (based on export values) of £97,000,000. Considering that the cost of transport absorbed an amount equal to almost 50 per cent, of the national revenue, it was absurd for the commission to suggest that the department should be annihilated. in 1914 the production value was £60,000 000 and the cost of transport I 17 ;?™’ 0 ” 0 - Comparing the two sete of fi the value of production had increased by 63 per cent, and the cost of transport by 14 « i P wish 6 to make a definite suggestion to the Government for an improvement in its method of co-ordinating transport, added Mr Ansell. “The situation demands that co-ordination should be undertaken to eliminate wasteful duplication, and I am going to suggest that we should create one transport administration to govern the whole of the transport °P tions of the Dominion. At present we have the local bodies, the Highways Board, the Transport Department, the Public Works Department, the Marine Department, the Railways Board, and other interested organisations. Our a: l3 ?i whose be to co-ordinate the work of all those departments. Voluntary co-ordination has been A failure, and m the future «c must have compulsory co-ordination. Wc should create a transport council of persons specially qualified through their knowledge of finance or transport, and refer to S it all matters relating to trans-port-roads, railways, and even airW Railway branch lines, he continued, were showing losses even on the operating costs. He understood that this situation was largely due to the fact that the railways wire being left the lower-rate goods while the higher-rate goods went i by ioad. A Labour member: The faimers are Si * y S U .& C lS.rd, Mr Ansell was thus faced with the alternatives ot raising the lower rates or increasing the railways deficit. What the country had to determine was what form of transport could give it the best-service over each area. g An outside organisation such - as the transport council which he proposed could order that the railways must carry a certain class of produce, but it was very difficult to give the Railways Board the responsibility for making such a statement. The board had .to attend to its own interests, and so did the Transport Department, the Public Works Department, and the Marine Department. “Here Ave have springing up all over the place small harbours that we «rald well do without, siud Mr Ansell. Millions of pounds are being spent on them. I suggest again that some supreme authority "should" be set over all the arrange-, merits. In this way wc should neither kill the older means of transport nor stifle the modern.”